72" Rotary Cutter on BX2380 | Oversized Implements

Neil from Messick's here to discuss running oversized implements on your tractor. Recently I noticed a post on Facebook from somebody asking whether their BX series tractor, one of these small subcompacts behind me here, could run a 72-inch rotary cutter. I chuckled a little bit and I responded with this photo. Then once I got back to the store here and started looking around a little bit, I started realizing that there's a little bit more nuance to this question than what I may have let on. Today we're going to walk around and talk about it.
There are two main specifications that are used when gauging whether an implement is going to fit on the back of your tractor, and that don't tell the whole story but they're a big piece of the pie. The first one is PTO horsepower. The big BX series tractor 2680 is going to have 26 odd horsepower up there at the engine but is going to put about 20 of those out the PTO that's going to be available to the implement on the back of your machine.
The second one is going to be the three-point hitches lift capacity. The amount that those rear arms can lift up off the ground. The honest number that you want to look for here is the one that is 24 inches behind the ball ends of the three-point hitch because that's where most of the weight of your implement is located. In the case of a BX series tractor, that comes out to 680 pounds.
Now, there are more to these two specifications than just the numbers themselves. As much as we want to be able to take those two numbers and say, "These are my guidelines for an implement," it doesn't work out quite that way. Today's modern tractors have three-point hitches that are so capable there's virtually no implement that's going to fit behind the tractor that they can't lift and drive around with appropriately. We see more and more tractors anymore where the lift specification on the three-point hitch is so high that when they lift that amount of weight there's nothing left on the front of the tractor to hold the front wheels down and actually make that implement usable in any transport.
That's likely going to be the case that we find here. The other number that has a little bit of a flexibility to it anymore is actually your PTO horsepower. Decades ago when tractors were primarily gear-drive transmissions, you needed to be able to kick that tractor in gear and have enough horsepower that your mower could keep up with the load of the grass that you were cutting or your rototiller could till the dirt fast enough for the tractor's travel speed. As hydrostatic transmissions have become ubiquitous across a lot of these smaller tractors today, or even in our bigger machines, we've got way more gears in our power shift transmissions and stuff than we've ever had before.
You can select a really low ground speed and get away with less horsepower than what that implement may want just by having a really slow travel speed and giving the implement time to work. Here's what it looks like. Now Kubota actually has a full category one three-point hitch on the subcompact tractors. That is a little unusual. Competitively when you look at other brands, many of them are going to have limited category one, three-point hitches which aren't going to allow them to pin up to this mower. Now are they really missing anything? Probably not because you're going to see how silly this is.
The specification here though, this mower doesn't fall too far outside the tractor. We're a little short on the PTO horsepower but the weight is actually okay. If I start my tractor up here believe it or not I can lift it. Get that tail wheel up a little bit off the ground. Now the lift height here is a little limited. You might want to adjust the tail wheel a little bit differently for a little bit more clearance, but sure enough, it can pick the thing up. Oddly enough, predictably enough, it doesn't take too much weight here in order to pop that front end right up off the ground.
With such little front weight here, I can't steer this tractor when I try to drive back and forth. I don't have enough weight over top of those front tires in order to get any meaningful tractor. That's what the weight of the snowblower out here in the front. Now, if you really wanted to do this conceivably, you might be able to hang enough weights out here on the front of the tractor or convince your Messick salesman to sit out here in front of the machine as some balance for you to go mow, but it's going to be a stretch.
It's not something that's probably long-term good for the tractor or really a proper way to get by with things, but in the situation that you're going to borrow your neighbor's mower that may be oversized for your tractor, you might be able to get away with it. Now, I know in many scenarios we've got people that actually want to do something like this, to have a really large mower on an oddly small tractor and do it regularly. There's actually some solutions that can help with that. A lot of the balance issues that come from that specific setup are because the mowers weight are so far behind the tractor.
Just when you go to lift something the further away it is from you the bigger impact it has on you and the amount of strength that you need to lift it. There are other mower solutions that can keep that mower a lot closer to the tractor and may not have such an impact on that balance. This is a dual spindle rotary cutter, not super common out there but this 84-inch cutter has two four-foot cutters underneath of it and pulls the weight of that implement much, much closer to the tractor. By doing so isn't going to have such a big impact on the balance of the machine. It's going to keep that center of gravity in a place that leaves a lot more weight on those front wheels and are easier to get around.
Finished mowers are often the same way too. With usually three blades underneath of them, the construction of that mower isn't nearly as long as what a rotary cutter is, keeping the weight closer to the tractor and making the mower easier to handle. While this is clearly not a good idea, we wouldn't recommend a setup like this to anyone. Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to discount the possibilities. You could be surprised sometimes by going through and taking the right care to balance your machine appropriately, maybe slow your drive speed down, just what unique variety of implements you can actually fit onto your tractor.
Wouldn't recommend it. There's better solutions. That machine should have no more than a 48-inch mower on it. Typically, sometimes we can surprise ourselves. If you're shopping for a piece of equipment and we can help, or if you've got parts of service needs for a machine you've already got, give us a call at Messick's. We're available at 800-222-3373 or online at messick.com.